These conferences, presented by Thomas Merton to the novices at the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1963 1964, focus mainly on the life and writings of his great Cistercian predecessor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 1153). Guiding his students through Bernard s Marian sermons, his treatise "On the Love of God," his controversy with Peter Abelard, and above all his great series of sermons on the Song of Songs, Merton reveals why Bernard was the major religious and cultural figure in Europe during the first half of the twelfth century and why he has remained one of the most influential spiritual...